The "I Hate My Dad" 2022 WNBA Season Preview
It's time to preview the WNBA Season using music, yet again
Ball and Order is a newsletter with my basketball analysis, reporting, takes and anything I can think of/have time to do. My name is Gabe Ibrahim (twitter: @gabe_ibrahim), I make digital content for Her Hoop Stats (@herhoopstats), and I also like to make tik toks about basketball (@ballandorder). Please subscribe!
The 2022 WNBA season starts on Friday! After last year’s rousing success in relating Taylor Swift to WNBA free agency, I couldn’t resist using music to preview the WNBA season again and knew exactly where to go for this year’s theme: the I Hate My Dad playlist.
This playlist is the brainchild of my buddy Max and it’s truly a work of art. The playlist features a wide array of genres including alt-rock, pop punk, and post-grunge from the late 90s to the mid 2000s. It’s a kind of amorphous group of songs, but they all fit together when you listen to the playlist. These songs are angsty anthems, so the team previews may be a bit more negative than normal. So jam out and let’s talk about the WNBA.
Note: I don’t hate my dad. My parents are actually pretty awesome and I love them dearly. In this context, hating your dad is more about hating the expectations and ideas that society has for you.
Indiana Fever: I’m Just A Kid by Simple Plan
I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare/I'm just a kid, I know that it's not fair
In my humble opinion, the definitional “I Hate My Dad” song is “Perfect” by Simple Plan, in which the singer literally sings to his father “I’m never going to be good enough for you.” The song just didn’t fit for any team. But Simple Plan’s biggest hit about how it sucks to be a kid is perfect for the Indiana Fever.
The Fever is just a kid in terms of their roster full of rookies and where they are in their rebuild. While I like the draft picks they made, the team will often feel like “life is a nightmare” during this season. The losses will pile up, but hopefully the Fever kids can grow up, develop into solid WNBA players and add a potential superstar in next year’s draft.
Dallas Wings: Dear Maria, Count Me In by All Time Low
I see your name in lights, we can make you a star
I know this song is ostensibly about a woman who becomes a stripper, but I think the real subject is the singer who is telling us “another tale of the American dream.” In a way, telling Arike Ogunbowale’s story is what Greg Bibb and the Dallas Wings are doing.
By signing her supermax extension, Ogunbowale cemented her place at the center of the franchise. The Wings also drafted Veronica Burton, who projects as a good foil for Arike. The whole roster is built around her. Even though Satou Sabally and other Wings have great potential, Dallas will go as far as Arike takes them.
Seattle Storm: Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade
Because a girl like you is impossible to find
How close did the Seattle Storm come to losing Breanna Stewart this offseason? We won’t know until 2023 when Stewart will again be an unrestricted free agent and Seattle will not have the advantage of Sue Bird’s farewell tour. The Storm are hoping that they can make Stewie fall in love with them again in 2022.
The analogy to this song goes a bit deeper, though. Secondhand Serenade is actually singing about a pretty toxic relationship where the singer has to make himself fall in love with his girlfriend again. He says “don’t make me change my mind” about wanting to be with his girlfriend, which is not how you should view a relationship.
Athlete-team relationships are inherently pretty toxic. At least one side must continually prove its worth to the other. Often, the player must sacrifice for the good of the team and wealth of the owner (see, Sue Bird’s minimum salary this year) or the team must relinquish all control to a player (see, Lebron James in LA and possibly Stewie in Seattle).
New York Liberty: The Anthem by Good Charlotte
I don't ever wanna be you/Don't wanna be just like you
Since the Joe Tsai-Jonathan Kolb era began in 2019, the Liberty have lived by The Anthem’s call to reject conformity and not follow what your forerunners tell you is right. They dismantled the end of the Tina Charles-era, traded Charles, moved the team to Brooklyn, and changed the team’s branding for the first time in franchise history. They went younger than any other team did in 2020 before pivoting to a “hybrid rebuild” when free agents wanted to sign in New York.
More importantly, the Liberty have been pushing the boundaries of how the WNBA does business with analytics, training staffs, and player development. They’ve also outright stuck their middle fingers to the WNBA’s rules on air travel. The Liberty may be heading toward conformity by replacing Walt Hopkins with Sandy Brondello. But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Liberty trying not to be like other WNBA teams.
Phoenix Mercury: Here Without You by 3 Doors Down
A hundred days have made me older/Since the last time that I saw your pretty face/A thousand lies have made me colder/ And I don't think I can look at this the same/But all the miles that separate/ Disappear now when I'm dreaming of your face
No jokes in this section. I’ll eventually figure out how to talk about the Mercury this season, but Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia is still all that I can think about with them.
Las Vegas Aces: First Date by Blink-182
Is it cool if I hold your hand?/Is it wrong if I think it's lame to dance?/Do you like my stupid hair?
The Aces are on a first date with new head coach Becky Hammon and, clearly, both parties are still figuring out the relationship. The Aces waived Mya Hollingshed, the 8th pick in this year’s draft whom Vegas traded next year’s first rounder to draft, and Khyla Pointer, who is team president Nikki Fargas’s niece.
My theory is that the disconnect between the draft decisions and roster selections is due to Hammon’s later arrival to the team and the Aces’ failure to iron out their front office in the offseason. Vegas hired their GM three days before the draft! As the singer here, the Aces don’t know what Hammon likes and are worried about what she thinks and vice versa. There will be an adjustment for both sides, but I think that the future will remain bright in Vegas.
On an unrelated note, my now-wife and I listened to this song on our way to our very first date at the Richmond Science Museum almost 7 years ago. We’re cute.
Washington Mystics: My Happy Ending by Avril Lavigne
We were meant to be, supposed to be/But we lost it
After winning the 2019 championship, the Mystics never got a parade. Superstar Elena Delle Donne has played three games since then due to COVID and the debilitating back injury she suffered in those Finals. Tina Charles opted out of the Wubble, played one season and then left in free agency. Emma Meesseman played in the Wubble, sat out in 2021, then left. Aerial Powers also left. DC signed Alysha Clark and she immediately got hurt before playing for the team.
The end result was losing in the 2020 first round on a buzzer beater by a player that the Mystics had waived earlier in that season and missing the playoffs altogether in 2021. So much for their happy ending to the story of the 2019 champions.
However, the Mystics have a seemingly healthy Delle Donne and a chance to compete for a title in 2022. This won’t be the happy ending to the story of the last two years, but a new story with hopefully less tragic turns.
Connecticut Sun: One Step Closer by Linkin Park
'Cause I'm one step closer to the edge/I'm about to break
Linkin Park absolutely needed to be on the list and their shredding anthem about frustration perfectly fits with the Connecticut Sun. The Sun have been one of the WNBA’s best teams since 2019. But they’ve lost in heartbreaking and frustrating ways including losing as the one-seed four games into their playoff run last season.
They also haven’t been whole since coming within a game of the championship in 2019. They are now with reigning MVP Jonquel Jones and a “supporting cast” featuring five former All-Stars. But every year in which they don’t win a championship moves closer to the edge of breaking. Frustration can only go on so long.
Chicago Sky: All the Small Things by Blink-182
Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na, na/Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na, na
It’s pretty hard to find a fully happy song on the “I Hate My Dad” playlist for some reason. But the Sky don’t have much to be angsty about, so Blink-182’s simple ode to a great partner will do the trick for the defending champs. The Sky can sing this to the mostly intact championship core or to their newcomers like Emma Meesseman who should make a major impact this year.
Los Angeles Sparks: Dance, Dance by Fall Out Boy
Dance, dance, and these are the lives you love to lead
Obviously, Fall Out Boy needs to be on list related to Alt-Rock/Pop-Punk of the Late 90s and Early 00s. Dance, Dance is about a young man’s obsessive love of a young woman that he barely knows. In a way, the Sparks have kind of been in love with Liz Cambage from afar for a while. She’s been a LA target since her departure from Dallas. Or maybe the situation is reversed with Cambage pining for the bright lights of LA for years with the Sparks not making a move. After all, she did take a pay cut to join the team. Regardless, the love is now reciprocal and both parties are relying on the other. Hopefully, they don’t end up “two quarters and heart down.”
Atlanta Dream: Misery Business by Paramore
Woah, it was never my intention to brag/To steal it all away from you now/But God, does it feel so good
It’s been a long and rough road for the Atlanta Dream since reaching the 2018 WNBA semifinals. They haven’t been back to the playoffs since then. Angel McCoughtry got hurt and left on less than ideal terms with the organization. Nikki Collen bolted for Baylor. The Chennedy Carter and Courtney Williams experiments ended disastrously. Oh and the team’s previous owner became a racist sycophant in the US Senate before the team organized to support her opponent. The last part was pretty awesome, but the franchise has suffered a lot of damage in the last three years.
Now, they have a new GM who can right the ship, a new coach who can manage personalities, and the No. 1 overall pick in Rhyne Howard. They have the league where they want them now… Well, maybe not. But they’re at least in a much better place and can leave the drama behind them. Paramore’s most popular song about beating out a competitor for a partner has the feeling that the Dream want going forward.
Minnesota Lynx: Welcome To The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance
Your memory will carry on, we'll carry on
My Chemical Romance’s rock opera about death, The Black Parade, is the best album on this list. Go listen to it right now if you haven’t or even if you have. I’ll wait.
Welcome back. No one is dying on the Minnesota Lynx (but if they were, Sylvia Fowles could embalm them when they go). Still, Fowles’s retirement will be the complete ending to not only the career of a top 3 center in WNBA history but also one of the greatest eras the league has seen these many years. Fowles joined the Lynx mid-dynasty in 2015 and helped bring home the team’s last two titles. She also won an MVP, a Finals MVP and two Defensive Player of the Year awards with Minnesota.
This song is about death coming to a person in the form of their fondest memory. If that’s true, the Minnesota odd-year dynasty would die with images of Fowles in its figurative head. (Again, no one is dying.)